I was introduced to the SETI project in 1999 while still in high school. At the time I ran it because it had a cool screen saver. I contribute now because I am both fantasist and realist. I believe that it is statistically impossible that Earth has the only intelligent life in the universe. I also believe that if enough people contribute then we will find life out there.
SETI@home and Astropulse are funded by grants from the National Science Foundation, NASA, and donations from SETI@home volunteers. AstroPulse is funded in part by the NSF through grant AST-0307956.